Now seems like a good time to tell tumblr about the absolute worst, and absolute funniest production of Dracula I’ve ever seen. (Yes, worse than the Rhys Myers version. That was a hot mess, but at least it was hot). It’s a long story, so buckle in.
Our sorry saga begins in 2018, when I discovered that a castle in my northern English city was hosting an immersive Hallowe’en theatre-by-candlelight performance of Dracula. Although I didn’t realise this at the time, the production was put on by a amateur dramatics society from a local university, with no previous performance history. For the life of me, I don’t know how a random group of 19 year olds persuaded the charity which runs this important historical landmark to lease the entire castle out to them, but they did. Because they did, I made the mistake of thinking that they were an accomplished professional theatre company, and that their version of Dracula was going to be good. Excellent, even. They had a decent flyer, and they got into the local paper. I mean, it’s Dracula - at night - in a castle - on Hallowe’en. What could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, everything.
The guests arrived at the drawbridge at 7pm, for our in-character hosts to greet us with flickering lanterns and usher us into the forebuilding (a little lobby attached to the keep). It’s important to know that this castle is a simple, square based medieval keep which consists of a cellar / dungeon directly beneath a great hall, and some smaller upper rooms atop the hall, with a mezzanine balcony.
My first indication that things are not-as-advertised is that one of our 19th century hosts has frosted tips, and the other is in full emo regalia, à la MCR concert circa 2009. The hosts proceed for the next half hour to ignore us, providing no further information about the performance, while walking ominously around our small crowd of roughly 20 guests with their lanterns.
At 7.30pm, it’s time for the performance to begin. By this point, we’re all pretty cold and stiff, what with standing around in a medieval stone keep. Frosted Tips raises his lantern and announces in a booming voice that it’s time for us to descend down a spiral staircase to the dungeon. An extremely steep, one hundred and twenty step spiral stone staircase, in the dark.
Nowhere on their flyer, website, or ticketing was it stated that we would need to climb stairs at any point during the performance. Let alone these stairs.
Most of the guests are dressed casually, but two women in their 40s (lets call them Linda and Cheryl) are in high heels for a night out at the theatre - as you do. Cheryl and Linda ask our hosts in a worried tone whether they really need to climb down 100+ dodgy stone stairs in heels. Frosted Tips explains that yes, the play begins in the dungeon, and that during the performance, we will have to climb up and down this staircase no less than six times.
Linda points out that she and Cheryl are both in high heels. Cheryl points out that she suffers from vertigo. Frosted Tips looks at them flatly and says ‘Well then you won’t be able to see the play.’
Cheryl asks, in a slightly quavering voice, ‘Then what are we supposed to do now?’
Frosted Tips replies, with all the grace of an 18 year old who isn’t getting paid enough to be here on a Saturday night, ‘I suppose you’ll have to leave.’
They left. (God, how I wish that was me.) I didn’t see them get refunds.
5 minutes later, all 20 of us (well, 18 now) are crammed into this miserable, clammy dungeon. At this point it becomes clear that this 2.5 hour immersive theatre performance not only entails repeated forced exercise, but also doesn’t include chairs. There’s nowhere to sit except the dirty floor.
What follows is several identical scenes of Dracula visiting Jonathan in ‘his quarters’ (ie. the dungeon) to discuss legal matters and sexually harrass him, broken up by periods of Jonathan fake sleeping. Frosted Tips and Black Parade then lead us up to the great hall, where Dracula continues to harrass Jonathan over dinner, and then back down to the dungeon. Rinse and repeat for one hour.
On the brightside, climbing 120 stairs 4 times in 2 hours is a good way to keep warm. On the downside, I suspect that the writer and director took illict substances sometime between the original script and final rehearsals. I say this because the book wasn’t broken down into a proper story with clear scene breaks. There’s no Lucy, no Demeter, no Whitby, no nothing of the middle 300 pages. There’s just Jonathan’s initial stay in the castle, a random visit from Mina to establish that she and Dracula Want To Fuck™, and Van Helsing’s visit for the show down. But because we’re all just alternately standing in the dungeon or the hall, there’s no indication of the passage of time. We’ve got no idea if Jonathan is taking yet another midday nap, or if several nights are now passing over the course of five minutes. Is Mina is arriving because it’s next 8pm or next year? Who fucking knows.
As the play unfolds we realise that Dracula aside, two guys are rotating all the male speaking roles (unless you count Frosted Tips). So the actors must have an alternative way of getting between the dungeon and great hall between scenes, in order to keep the performance going without getting ludicrously out of breath. A way which was crucially not open to Cheryl or Linda. There’s no significant props and there’s no staging. There’s just what already exists in the castle - ie. the occasional suit of armour, the long table of the hall, and some rickety chairs. In short, there is absolutely no reason why the entire play couldn’t have taken place in the great hall, thus sparing everyone the aerobic torture.
The worst thing about this experience though, without a shadow of a doubt, was how viscerally uncomfortable it was.
The key theme of the company’s play appears to be that Dracula is a serial sexual predator, especially towards certain freshfaced attorneys whose names begin with J H and rhyme with Ronathan Rarker. Now, god knows I’m all for the sexual reading of Dracula. But you know what I’m not for? Having to watch people be sexually harrassed.
And yet, here we are. Pressed shoulder to shoulder in this miserable dungeon, as directly infront of us Dracula repeatedly pins skinny little Jonathan up against medieval stonework, sniffs his neck and goes ‘Ah, ah, ah,’ like Count Von Count. Because unlike everyone else’s attempts at RP English accents, Drac is full blown Hotel Transylvania.
Can you imagine how excruciating it is to watch a visibly uncomfortable teenager be repeatedly touched and crowded against a wall 1 metre from your face, but not be able to intervene because it isn’t real?
And so, Jonathan continues to cower and mutter asinine things about legal contracts, and Dracula continues to leer and paw over him like some kind of... well, like a registered sexual offender. This ungodly pantomine continues every time we descend back down into the dungeon. For two hours.
At no point do any of the cast acknowledge what Dracula is doing, or address or explore it in it any way within the script. It doesn’t add to to the production in a meaningful way. It just... keeps happening. Jonathan looks deeply unsettled and never makes eye contact with Dracula, but at this point it’s impossible to tell if that’s a directorial choice, or if it’s because the wall is uncomfortable and his clothes are getting dirty...or indeed if it’s because his colleague is taking the theatrically sanctioned firetruck game just a wee smidgen too far. There’s no interogation of the demonisation of sexuality, of bisexuality, of the links between vampirism, sex, and religiously or socially prohibited behaviours, no nothing. There’s just Nonconsensual Sexy Times In The Clammy Dungeon for Days.
To go back to the director’s potential consumption of ilicit substances, they also decided that it would ‘build atmosphere’ to make us sit stand through extended periods of silence (we’re talking several minutes at a pop) watching Jonathan fake-write in his journal or fake-sleep on a plinth. Babes, the only thing it built was cramp. Let me tell you that it was weird standing around like Edward Cullen to watch this guy repeatedly lie down, fully dressed, on a bare stone plinth - no bed, pillows or blanket - in a dungeon - and pretend to sleep.
At least while Jonathan’s “sleeping”, Dracula won’t be sniffing his neck, rearranging his clothes and impersonating Adam Sandler. Wrong, obviously. Because of course the sleeping periods are when the vampire wives emerge.
Now, these particular wives run cackling about wearing nighties, knickers and nothing else. They were thin nighties, so believe me that you could very much tell, down to whether it was briefs or bikinis. (And guys, the castle is cold. Northern lasses are fucking invincible.) So then not only are we watching Jonathan fake sleep on what is essentially his own tomb, we’re also watching three girls in next to nothing climb on top of him, writhe around, and lick his chest and face.
As I said, excruciating.
Blessedly, Jonathan escapes the castle after an hour or so (or maybe he’s left dying in the dungeon, honestly I can’t remember and I don’t care), which means it’s time for Dracula to seduce his fiancée instead.
And so we get to Mina.
We’re over an hour in to the play by the time Mina arrives, and she’s the only woman with a speaking role (the vampire wives are only allowed to cackle. Black Parade doesn’t even get to give directions). All of her scenes take place in the great hall, which is a solid 4 times the size of the dungeon. However for some reason the actress has modelled her Mina-voice off of Lina Lamont in Singing In The Rain. By which I mean that she’s so high pitched and squeaky, that across the echoing depths of the great hall, no-one can hear what she’s saying. The Count sounds ridiculous, but at least he knows how to throw his voice and boom. So a lot of what we hear for the next hour is simply unintelligible guinea pig noises followed by ‘AH, AH, AH!!’ resounding about the drafty rafters, echoed by the unhinged cackling of the near-naked wives on the mezzanine balcony.
After Dracula seduces Mina with fake dining (not using any plates or bowls, because again why use props) and rambling about his ‘good friend Jonathan’, I guess she’s sold, because she and Dracula break out a slow dance. As they waltz about the great hall Mina starts to get droopier and droopier, until Dracula is essentially leading her around while she’s doing the limbo. I think the implication was that he’s hypnotised her. But the kicker is that for the entire duration of the waltz, there’s no music. We watch Mina and Dracula waltz in silence for ten minutes, and no-one in the cast even thought to bring a bluetooth speaker.
By this point, the batshit nonsense of the last two hours is starting to bear on me. Things have gone beyond awful into just plain hilarious. If they keep waltzing, I’m going to lose it. But does it end there? Oh no! Mina hasn’t been sexually harrassed yet! So whilst we watch this awful, silent limbo waltz, late at night in this cold, looming castle hall, Dracula starts to slowly peel Mina’s clothes off. (Diversity win! The anti-semitic stereotype who assaulted your boyfriend is bi!! Fuck you Moffat!!!)
We’re watching the most awkward strip tease I’ve ever seen, in pure silence. My shoulders are shaking with laughter and I hope everyone else in the audience mistakes it for shivering from the cold.
The silent waltzing continues. Mina’s frilly blouse and thick hoop skirt fall to the floor. Oh god, I think, I don’t want to see her thong.
Not to worry, she’s wearing another full costume underneath. THE SAME COSTUME.
And then they just stop waltzing and the play continues.
From this point on I’m pinching my leg almost hard enough to draw blood simply to suppress hysterics. Meanwhile, Mina’s second blouse is askew and her second skirt is hanging off, exposing her hip and part of her hoopskirt for the rest of the performance. She and Dracula continue to vaguely nuzzle, cuddle, and feel each other up, but there’s no kissing. There’s no kissing in the entire performance. This is what I cannot fathom. There’s nonconsensual sniffing and licking and looming but there’s no consensual kissing. What the fuck planet are we fucking on?!
Eventually, blessedly, this torture comes to an end when Van Helsing (the only half competent actor) kills Dracula. I think he pushes a stake in him and Dracula collapses in the great hall or something, but I don’t remember. Possibly I just blacked out for the final 20 minutes. Frosted Tips gives us one final haughty sneer, and we escape out into the night to tentatively ask each other, in a typical British fashion, "So... what did you think of the play?”
And that is how I paid a solid £20 for one of the worst evenings of my life. To my shame I dragged two friends along with me - one of whom I haven’t spoken to since (not sure if there’s a connection).
What Google informed me later is that the actors who played Mina and Dracula are both the founders of the theatre company, and the directors of the show. Which explains why they cast themselves as the leads, and then made everyone suffer through 20 minutes of them feeling up each other, and in Dracula’s case, another hour of him feeling up Jonathan in the Clammy Dungeon of Sex.™
While writing this post, I found the theatre company online. They have a single 1 star review. It’s not from me.
They’ve never put on another production. The castle has never hosted immersive theatre again, either.
Happy fucking Hallowe’en.
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